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Reforms the state of Ohio has enacted over the past two years to improve efficiency and cut costs are winning praise from Ohio business leaders who are pushing politicians not to ease up on efforts to improve the way government operates.

The business leaders — executives of the state’s chambers of commerce who called for transformational changes two years ago — credited the state’s political leaders with eliminating an $8 billion budget shortfall without raising taxes, regulatory and pension reform, making state and local government more efficient, and reforms that have slowed the cost of health care for the state’s poorest people.

But they say the state has more to do, including reforms of the state’s tax code and educational system and strengthening local government.

Not on the list: a right-to-work law that would limit the power of unions.

“If government continued the status quo, it would only need to more job losses and more deficits,” said Ellen van der Horst, president of the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber and chairwoman of the Metro Chambers of Commerce.

The group credited the state with adopting many of the reforms it suggested two years ago in its report called “Redesigning Ohio.”

As a result, Ohio’s economic climate has improved, the state budget has been balanced and the unemployment rate has tumbled to 6.9 percent, down from 9.2 percent in December 2010.